A Cup of Death

by K. J. Emrick

“Fine then,” she said. “I know all about your past, Braydon Wise. That’s why we were onto you back at the diner. How else could we know about the bank robbery that happened at the time my aunt disappeared?”

  Which was a total lie, of course. It was only by fluke that they had put that together, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. He scowled and this time when he advanced on her, he had his hands curled into fists.

  “Ever since that fool Josh Bates went to find you at Ragged Rest you’ve been butting in. He kicked the hornet’s nest and put everything we built in danger. I knew working with that lowlife freelancer would come back to bite me in the butt and sure enough, here we are!”

  Kyle waved his hands fiercely in Braydon’s direction. “Get out of here! Go! You leave my Miranda alone!”

  Miranda appreciated his caring but at the same time she didn’t have a whole lot of hope that he would be able to do anything at all to help her. Maybe if he had a pencil…

  She took a step back.

  Braydon took a step forward.

  “I said leave!” Kyle shouted, his voice rising up to become a roar of wind and noise that was felt more than heard, even for Miranda.

  Braydon stopped where he was, nearly within arm’s reach of Miranda, and looked all around the room. “What was that?”

  Miranda didn’t hesitate. “That was my friend, Kyle. He’s here with us now. He’s here to protect me. You keep away from me or Kyle will tear you limb from limb!”

  For a moment Braydon looked convinced. He looked wildly about them, until his eyes narrowed, and he focused on Miranda again. “Of course. Bates told us all about your family’s little secret. You think you can see ghosts. You think they hang around like uninvited houseguests. Your aunt bought into all that nonsense, too. Uh-huh. You’re both nuts as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Houseguest!” Kyle blew up at the man, vibrating with indignation. “I’ll have you know that me and Miranda are best mates! I would do anything for her. Anything.”

  “Thank you, Kyle,” Miranda said to him.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Braydon was watching her intently. “You’re insane. Is that it? You’re not just a busybody, you’re a nutter. That’s what you are. Well. The world isn’t going to miss one more nutcase.”

  Miranda smiled at him sweetly. She had him doubting. Maybe there was a ghost in the room after all, he was thinking. Usually Miranda did everything she could to keep people from knowing about this part of her life. She didn’t want people thinking of her as the kook who talked to ghosts. But, if he planned on killing her anyway, then what did it matter if Braydon Wise thought she was a mad woman?

  What mattered was keeping Braydon occupied and off balance until Jack got back. If she could do that, it might just save her life.

  Please, let Jack come back soon.

  “I wanted you to keep your nose out of my business,” Braydon told her. “I told Bates to stay away from you. I told him to disappear. That’s why he burned his boat. That’s why he faked his own death. You should have let it be. Why didn’t you let it be?”

  Miranda remembered that whole thing, when Bates had gone missing, and the police had thought he was dead. Now the picture was becoming clearer. Bates had been working for Braydon Wise. They both knew Miranda’s aunt, somehow, from when they were younger. Bates had approached Miranda and started telling her things that Braydon wanted to remain secret.

  When Braydon told Bates to disappear, he’d burned his boat and faked his death. He couldn’t leave it alone, however, and so he’d sent Miranda that newspaper clipping.

  What had happened, all those years ago? What was Braydon hiding?

  “Well,” he said to her now, “as much fun as this has been, I think it’s time to end things.”

  Kyle waved his hands about again. “You stay away from her. I’m warning you!”

  Braydon chuckled, and it was a cold sound. “There’s no point looking at me like that, Miranda Wylder. You’re not going to put me off or make me feel bad, I’m just not wired that way. You have been poking around in the wrong business and I’m going to see to it that you never poke around in my business again!”

  “No, wait…” Miranda said, dropping to her knees to grab up her mobile in an attempt to call for help. This was getting out of hand far too quickly. She wasn’t going to be able to stall him any longer. She had to do something now. She could run, or she could fight him.

  Only she was unarmed, and except for her ghost friend Kyle, she was alone.

  As afraid as she was, as sure as she was that she was about to die, her only thought was to get ahold of Jack. He would save her. If only she could get him here, then he would save her.

  Braydon smiled at her, his big angry face just inches from hers as he reached for her with his bare hands. He towered over her, and the phone was in her hand… but there just wasn’t going to be any time to get help.

  Death was a cold certainty creeping up her spine.

  Then, in a flash, Kyle moved between her and Braydon. He just moved, and there he was, his ghostly form glowing with blue intensity. He was more solid than Miranda had ever seen him, almost a physical presence again just like he’d been one in life.

  As Braydon took that last step, Kyle threw his hands up.

  “Noooo!” he cried in a piercing scream.

  The sound of it seemed to fill the room. It pressed against her ears and shot through her brain. Miranda knew she had never heard a noise like it in all her life. It was not an earthly noise. Nothing living could have made that sound.

  As the scream continued it became so cold in the room that Miranda could see her sudden exhaled breath. There was an energy to the sound that she could feel against her skin. It was a pressure that kept building until it was more than uncomfortable. It was almost painful.

  She saw it on Braydon’s face, too. He felt it. He heard it. He lifted his hands up over his face to protect himself from an onslaught that he couldn’t see. The force of Kyle’s voice, raised in that single word, pushed him back and away from Miranda, nearly to the other side of the room. He shivered violently and grabbed hold of one of the kitchen chairs to keep his balance and still he was being pushed back.

  In the next moment, it was over.

  Kyle fell silent, still hovering protectively in midair between Miranda and Braydon. “Wow,” she heard him say.

  That pretty much summed it up.

  “Who’s there?” Braydon said, wiping at his eyes and blinking furiously. “You’ve got someone here. Who’s here, Miss Wylder? You don’t have a ghost in here. There’s no such thing as ghosts. Who do you have in here? Huh? Tell me who!”

  He was backing up further, to the doorway, and then to the hall, all the while keeping his eyes searching everywhere as if he was expecting someone to jump out of hiding at any minute.

  It was all too much for Braydon Wise. There was no way to explain what he had just experienced. Faced with the impossible, his face turned a sickly shade of gray, and he turned on his heels and ran.

  Right into the waiting arms of Jack Travis.

  Miranda had never been so happy in all her life to see Jack arrive home. He came around the corner of the kitchen entryway just as Braydon tried to make his escape and without a single word he twisted Braydon around and threw him to the floor. Handcuffs clicked into place around both of the man’s wrists.

  When he was done, he put a knee down against Braydon’s back to hold him in place while he took his phone out of a pocket.

  “My security system,” he explained in a voice that was far too calm, “sends an alert to my mobile whenever it goes off. Usually it’s just the paperboy throwing the morning news against my door too hard and setting off a false alarm.”

  He turned the screen to show Miranda. The words “front door alarm” flashed in red.

  “But today,” he continued, “I figured with you staying over, Miranda, that I’d better check. Just to be sure. Especially when you didn’t answer my call.”
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  “Um,” she said sheepishly. “I dropped my mobile under the table.”

  He looked at her, and then down at Braydon Wise, knowing there was a story here to tell. With a shrug he flipped to his home screen to place the call to the police station.

  “Jack?” Miranda asked him while the call rang through.

  “Yes?”

  “You still get the newspaper delivered?”

  “What can I say?” he shrugged. “I’m old fashioned.”

  Chapter 9

  “Oh wow, Kyle! I didn’t know you could do that!”

  Miranda was in the rental van, following Jack to the police station. Kyle was right beside her looking just as pleased as that cat from the stories who ate the canary for lunch.

  “Honesty, Miranda?” he said with a wide grin. “Neither did I!”

  “What, they didn’t teach that to you in some sort of afterlife extension course?”

  “Nope,” he said. “That one just sort of, um, came out of me.”

  It had taken only a few minutes for a patrol car to arrive and take Braydon away. The man hadn’t said a single word the whole time. Miranda had seen his eyes darting furtively all around Jack’s house, still looking for the source of that cold blast of ethereal force, but his lips had stayed tightly sealed.

  “So when you did that,” Miranda asked Kyle as they pulled into the police station car park, “you were just acting on instinct?”

  “It’s like I told you when I first came back. I got supercharged when I was over on the other side. They let me become a spirit guide to come back and watch over you because something was going to happen in your life and you were going to need me. I just, um, don’t remember everything I can do. I’m sort of picking it up again in pieces.”

  She looked at him sideways, lowering her head so that her hair covered her face and no one looking in from outside would suspect she was talking to a ghost. “That seems like it wouldn’t be very useful.”

  “Really?” he teased. “Because it was very useful back at Jack’s place.”

  “True,” she said. “I just meant not knowing what you can do. Thank you, Kyle. You probably saved my life. Was that what they sent you back for? That moment back there in the kitchen?”

  He sank a little lower in the seat he wasn’t really sitting in and shook his head. “No. I may not remember exactly what it was they sent me back for, because that’s the way the veil between here and there works, but I can tell you that it wasn’t that. I’m glad I was there when you needed me, don’t get me wrong, but there’s more to come.”

  “Wonderful,” Miranda quipped, and stepped out to follow Jack and the uniformed officers inside.

  It was getting closer to noon now. There had been a delay for her and Jack back at the house while they found someone to temporarily close off the front door. Unlike with Ragged Rest, where there was no broken door to fix, Jack’s house was now sporting a temporary plywood entryway.

  Miranda had explained everything that had happened with Braydon while they waited for the carpenter, and Jack had been full of gratitude for their ghostly friend as well when he heard Kyle’s part of the story. It was a good thing that Kyle couldn’t blush anymore. His blue aura would have turned a bright pink!

  Now, at the station, Miranda was looking forward to finally wrapping this mystery up. They had Josh Bates in custody. He could tell them about what happened to her aunt. They had Braydon Wise in custody now, too, and she had to believe he was the one who killed Leon Peniston. Braydon was the one who disposed of the coffee cup with the poison. He was the one who was going to kill Miranda to keep his secrets safe. It had to be him.

  All that was left was to pick up Janice Peniston for breaking into her house. She’d told Jack what she had figured out about that as well, and when she was finished he got that look on his face that told her they could only do one thing at a time. Which was true. For now, they would concentrate on Braydon Wise. She had to hurry to catch up to Jack because he was already through the front doors.

  When she got to the steps of the police station she was almost running, and because of that she almost toppled right into someone coming out at the same time she wanted to go in.

  “Oh!” she said, “I’m sorry… oh, hi. Jimmy Jones, right? What are you doing here?”

  The man renting a room at her neighbor’s house smiled at her warmly. “Well, hello there Miranda. Wow, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

  “I can say the same about you,” she replied, although it was nice to see a fan who really did know her works. She was convinced that Braydon Wise had made up that whole thing about recognizing her from her dust jacket. Obviously, he’d known about her before that. He knew about Josh Bates talking to her at Ragged Rest, after all.

  “I dunno, Miranda,” Kyle chimed in, leaning in close to Jimmy, rubbing his chin with one hand. “I don’t think this guy just accidentally popped up here. I mean, look at him. He’s wearing the same clothes he was yesterday.”

  Miranda reflexively glanced down at the pants and the shirt and that cardigan sweater and realized Kyle was only half right. It was the same sort of outfit, but different clothes. This cardigan had thin yellow lines through the red, whereas the one yesterday had gray lines. It was a small distinction, and Miranda wasn’t surprised that Kyle had missed it. She did think it was odd for a man who wasn’t even middle-aged to dress all the time as if he were a grandfather…

  When she looked back up at his face, Jimmy was smiling at her in that way guys do when they think a woman has been checking them out.

  “Uh,” Miranda stuttered, trying to think of an excuse for something she hadn’t been doing in the first place, “so I’m here to see Jack. He’s a detective here. And my boyfriend. Yes. I’m here to see my boyfriend.”

  “Ah. Your wonderful neighbors Isabel and Deirdre told me about Jack and you,” he said, that smile still in place. “I have to say, I can’t quite picture you with a man like that.”

  “Like what?” she asked, not catching his meaning.

  “Well, let’s face it. Police officers aren’t known for their intellectual wit. Investigative skills, perhaps, but I doubt that Jack is an avid reader like we are.”

  Miranda wanted to argue in favor of her man, but she knew she couldn’t. It was true that Jack didn’t read much. Between the time he spent at his job and the time he spent on her, it didn’t exactly leave him a lot of leisure time. She actually enjoyed knowing that Jack had his hands on her more than on the pages of a book.

  Still, she didn’t take offense at what Jimmy had just said. There would always be people who didn’t see what she saw in Jack.

  “I guess,” she said cheerfully, “there are times when opposites attract. Jack and I may have slightly different interests, but together we make a great team.”

  “Yeah!” Kyle cheered. “So bugger off, you sweater wearing Lothario.”

  Miranda cringed inwardly, glad that Jimmy couldn’t hear that. Once more, she gave herself a mental note to remind Kyle that even if other people couldn’t hear him, she could.

  “Well,” Jimmy said, tilting his head in a shrug. “Can’t blame a guy for trying. I don’t suppose you’d like to have lunch with me sometime just the same? You and Jack, I mean.”

  “And me!” Kyle made sure to add.

  Miranda ignored him. To Jimmy, she said, “I’d love to. Um. Things are a little hectic at the moment. I really do need to get inside and catch up with Jack. We just had someone break into his house.”

  “And try to kill you,” Kyle said. “Don’t forget that part.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible,” Jimmy said to Miranda with honest sympathy. He couldn’t hear what Kyle had said, of course, but what little Miranda had told him had upset him just the same. “And you had someone break into your home just this weekend, too. My, but you do live an exciting life. No wonder your books are so engaging.”

  “Suck up,” Kyle muttered.

  “Ky—!” Miranda turned to snap at him. S
he quickly caught herself and hid her misstep with a cough behind one hand. “Kind of you to say, I mean. Um. Well. I should be going.”

  “Sorry to have kept you,” he said. “I was just here to get a resident parking permit. I didn’t even realize Moonlight Bay required one until Deirdre mentioned it.”

  “Well, they don’t require it, but it keeps you from having to pay parking fees anywhere downtown. Just a perk of living here.”

  “Very nice. Well, I’ll stop by that wonderful home of yours tomorrow to talk about our lunch plans. I’ll bring by what I have done on my novel for you to review, too. Would that be all right?”

  She returned his smile with one of her own now. “Yes. I’d like that. I’m glad you’ve moved into our town, Jimmy Jones. See ya.”

  Miranda was at the front door before she realized Kyle was still standing there, watching Jimmy go. “Come on, Kyle. Jack’s waiting for us.”

  “I don’t know about that guy.”

  “You mean Jimmy? He’s just a nice guy, Kyle. He’s a little strange, sure, but he’s nice. It will be good to make another friend here in Moonlight Bay. Even if he is living with Deirdre, the most annoying person who has ever lived.”

  “Sure, I guess.” Still he stood there, watching Jimmy’s car drive off.

  “All right, Kyle,” she said to him, “what has your ghostly knickers in a twist?”

  “I really don’t know. There’s just something about this guy. Remember how we figured out there must have been someone else there when that picture of your aunt and Josh Bates got taken? Someone to take the picture? Well, it’s a wee bit suspicious that Jimmy Jones just shows up next door to you when all of this is happening. What if it was him taking the picture? What if that’s how he fits into all this?”

  “You mean,” Miranda said, crossing her arms and giving him a look, “instead of him just being an aspiring writer who moved in next door to one of his idols? You’re getting paranoid, Kyle. Not everybody we run into is going to be a suspect or a bad guy. Some people are just people. And I don’t think Jimmy would have been old enough to have been the third person. He can’t be more than thirty five now.”